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Summary Of The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock

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Prufrock the Coward T. S. Eliot's poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is a dramatic monologue that Prufrock gives to an unknown person when he asks him or her to accompany him on a walk. J. Alfred Prufrock is the perfect example of someone who over thinks everything. He uses his gift of over thinking everything to help him to be a coward and not ask the question that he is dying to ask a woman. T.S. Eliot uses allusion, symbolism, and imagery to show that Prufrock is over thinking everything in order to stay a coward. Prufrock uses the allusions of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” and the story of Lazarus from the Bible. Prufrock says “No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be” which is a very ironic statement, because Prufrock and Hamlet are very much alike (Eliot 111). “Hamlet questions the ethics of action in ways that subvert the convention at its very foundations … the hero's oft-remarked procrastination;” (Scobie Para.18) like Hamlet Prufrock also question whether or not he should act or wait a little longer. Both characters use the question of to act or not to act as their way of procrastinating and continuing to be cowards. Prufrock also uses the allusion of Lazarus from the Bible. He says; “And would it have been worth it, after all / … To say: I am Lazarus, come from the dead, / Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all” (Eliot 87, 94-95), he is once again questioning whether or not it would be best to ask his question. He ends up finding a way to

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